Page 33 of Free Heart
I can’t do this. I can’t.
I sit up and swing my legs over the side of the bed. “Fuck,” I whisper, as my leg screams at the movement. I feel dizzy and swimming blue dots threaten my consciousness. “Holy fuck.”
I can barely handle the pain of repositioning myself back on the mattress, but I grit my teeth through it.
The cats are still watching me, judging my every breath. “Well?” I ask them.
They don’t move for a very long time.
Neither do I.
*
Sejin
I find Danin bed staring at the ceiling, looking like his soul hasleft his body.
“Hey,” I say, brushing the hair away from his wide-set eyes, and trailing my fingers down his stubbly, bruised, and stitched-up cheek. “What’s wrong?”
Dan’s eyes shift to me, and they look so panicked that I immediately kneel next to the bed. “Talk to me.”
“I can’t do this,” he says. “I can’t just lie in this bed all day. I’ll go insane.”
“Danny, it’s been a week. It’s going to take some getting used to before—”
“How can I get used to this? There’s the pain, and then there’s the boredom, and worse, the—” He takes a sharp breath and shakes his head. “I feel like I’m losing my mind.”
“It’s not like you have another option,” I say, a little irritated.
This hasn’t been an easy week for either of us, and while I’ve been careful not to say this out loud, a mean little voice in my head likes to remind me that this is all completely Dan’s fault. Which doesn’t always make it easy for me to have the kind of patience with him that I’d like.
Dan groans, wiping a hand over his face.
“What you need is a change of scenery,” I say after a few moments. “Let’s move you out to the living room. You can look at the mountains from there at least. I’ll open the doors, and you’ll get some fresh air. We can explore what’s on Netflix, see if we can find a show with a lot of seasons for you to get invested in.”
“I don’t really watch TV.” He frowns.
“Well, it’s time to start,” I say briskly, moving to get the wheelchair I’d scored from a secondhand store in town. That and the toilet chair. It’s amazing what people dump at those places. I also found a waffle iron there, and I bought it too, hoping that some sweet breakfast treats would cheer Dan up when the dark times come.
I’d known there would be dark times. I just hadn’t expected them to hit so soon.
I suppose that’s what happens when a patient runs out of opioids and is left to deal with the pain on their own, except for a little help from Tylenol.
“This is going to hurt,” I say, as I help him scoot to the side of the bed. “But you’ll feel better with a new view. Something besides the ceiling.”
“Mmfhm,” is his reply as he holds back his groans.
I know he tries to be strong for me, mainly because he feels guilty for all the extra effort I have to put in to take care of him, but also, I think, because he doesn’t know yet how toletme care for him. Dan’s always been so alone. He’s done everything for himself for years.
“You don’t have to pretend it doesn’t hurt,” I say.
“I’m not,” he grits out.
“Right.”
“I hate this,” he says, once he’s seated in the wheelchair, chest heaving from the exertion and sweat standing out at his temples. “I hate this so much.”
“I’ll take this over you being dead,” I say. “But, yeah, it really sucks. No lie there.”
